The features and significance of Jingju plays (1790-1911)

Jingju as a genre has been extensively studied and its performance is not unfamiliar to the Western audience, who know it by the terms \Chinese opera\" or \"Peking opera\". There are however few studies on the texts of jingju plays. The present thesis examines jingju plays written from 1790 to 1911 analyzing their features and achievements. It makes extensive use of texts from the Che Wang Fu Repertoires which have been edited and published only in recent years. It will argue that contrary to the accepted scholarly opinions fin& plays are highly significant because they deal with new ideas reinterpretations of history and the critique of traditions. The thesis devotes each chapter to one major subject area in jingju plays. They are: Marketplace Play and Love Story Play produced during the incubating period of jingju History Play Courtroom Play and Frontier Fortress Play created during the later stage of the development of jingju. In dealing with each area the thesis will analyze the achievements and significance of the texts of jingju plays. Developed from various popular xiqu in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century jingju plays arose at a time when the traditional Chinese hierarchical society was on the verge of collapse. In the depiction of daily life or matters involving historical or ideological issues jingju playwrights raised a number of major questions not touched on by classical xiqu playwrights. Jingju playwrights have achieved breakthroughs in their criticisms of traditional culture traditional moral codes and The thesis argues that three main factors contributed to the breakthroughs of jingju plays. Firstly commercialism played an important role in the rise of popular playwrights and the expansion of popular arts and literature in the later periods of Chinese traditional society particularly in the late Qing. Another factor was political. The abolition of the official musician prostitutes for example facilitated the further commercialization of the performing arts. The third factor was literary. Jingju playwrights inherited new ideas plots characterization and settings of popular literature such as popular novels."